"Jane Yolen - Pit Dragon 02 - Heart's Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Yolen Jane)

was plump and jangling with coins. He had earned enough from the three fights to pay Sarkkhan his bond
and to buy ErrikkinтАЩs bond paper as well. He still owed Sarkkhan: gold for the barn and for feed, and the
choice of the second hatching. But he owed it freely, master to master. He was his own master now. He
need not wear his bag.

But Jakkin had sworn to himself that he would wear it until he could pour out the gold from the bag into
AkkiтАЩs hands and she accepted him as a master and a man. It was a promise he made to himself, and he
was a man who kept his promises. He hoped he would not have to wait too long.

For Adam Stemple, dragon master THE SECOND MOON had just lipped the horizon when Jakkin
checked the barn again. His great red dragon, HeartтАЩs Blood, was near her birthing time, and he was
more nervous than she. All day he had wandered uneasily, walking from bondhouse to the fields, then
back to the barn, looking in on the dragon frequently as she lay in her birth stall, grooming herself. He had
rubbed her nose, patted her head between the vestigial earflaps, crooned old nursery lullabies. Then, tight
with inexpressible feelings, he would leap up and run out of the barn, threading his way across the fields
of shoulder-high burnwort or bursting into the bondhouse to watch fat Kkarina cook.

тАЬGet out,тАЭ Kkarina had shouted at him the last time he had invaded her kitchen. She waved a large
wooden spoon at him. тАЬYouтАЩre making me nervous with your pacing. DonтАЩt worry so. The dragon will
know what to do when the eggs come. Believe me.тАЭ

Jakkin believed her all right. But He doubted he would know what to do. Should he crowd into the room
with HeartтАЩs Blood? Or should he observe the egg laying from the peephole in the door, as Master
Sarkkhan advised? Or should he stay away from the barn altogether, as old Likkam had pointedly told
him to do?

тАЬYouтАЩll only send her your own fears,тАЭ Likkarn said. тАЬYou transmit well with that worm. SheтАЩll add your
worries to her own. DonтАЩt be more of an idiot, boy, than you already are.тАЭ

But Jakkin couldnтАЩt stay away from the barn and his red. They had been together almost two years, but
in those two years they had grown up together, their thoughts linked in great colored patterns. He
wouldnтАЩt desert her now.

As he opened the barn door, he was hit with the blood-red tide of her sending and knew it was time.
Running down the corridor, he called, тАЬEasy, easy, my beauty.тАЭ But there was no recognition in her
churning reply.

He threw open the door of the birthing room and was almost overwhelmed by the power of her thoughts.
Suddenly he felt as she felt; for the first time there seemed no separation between them. He was engulfed
in the colors as if he himself were a great dragon hen.

The pressure in her birth canal sent waves rolling under the sternum and along her heavy stomach
muscles. She fluttered her wings, then pressed them against her sides, letting the edges touch her belly.
Stretching her neck to its fullest, she looked around, scouting the area for danger, an unconscious gesture
left over from the eons when dragons had given birth in mountain caves. The skin protrusions over her
ear holes fluttered.
Jakkin spoke again, making the sounds into a soothing chant. тАЬEasy, easy, my beauty, easy, easy, my
red.тАЭ

HeartтАЩs Blood opened her mouth as if to scream an answer into the dry air, but because she was a mute,